Style, for some people, is a complex way of saying simple things. For Peter Brook, it has latterly been a simple way of saying complex things. And in this resonant African fable, adapted by Marie-Hélène Estienne from the work of Amadou Hampâté Bâ and here played in English, you see Brook at his best. This is a piece of calm, quiet, meditative theatre that never hectors or raises its voice, but that addresses profound spiritual and political issues.

The story is set in French colonial West Africa in the 1930s. And at its heart lies a bitter doctrinal dispute among the Suﬁ community about whether a particular prayer should be said 11 or 12 times. It's an argument, stoked by the interventionist French, that leads to ﬁerce tribal divisions and violent bloodshed. And when the spiritual leader, Tierno Bokar, seeks to resolve the issue by siding with the oppositional Chérif Hamallah, he ﬁnds himself ostracised by his family and followers and left to a lonely death.

Although set in Mali 80 years ago, the story is ﬁlled with contemporary reverberations. It shows what happens when religion fails to accommodate dissent in the pursuit of sectional truths. It also topically shows the devastation wrought by uncomprehending European powers who impose their values on others: there is a bitter humour in the scene where the French induct the Africans into patriotic Gallic songs, or interrogate a Suﬁ leader as if a political subversive. But, in the end, the show is neither rancorous or bitter. It is about the limitations and the necessity of tolerance, and achieves a moving resolution as Tierno Bokar "goes to death as to a feast".

What I admired most was the simple beauty of Brook's staging. A folded cloth becomes a gently rocking boat as the village narrator crosses a river. Colonialist arrogance is evoked by a dais-like chair in which an administrator sits reading a newspaper ignoring his new clerk. And when factionalist religious ﬁghters burn an opponent's feet, the violence is suggested by vehemently percussive strokes from Toshi Tsuchitori's expressive music. What you see on stage is a distillation of a particular world, accomplished by pure craftsmanship. Brook's cast of seven also switch roles with consummate ease; but one must single out Makram J Khoury who invests Tierno Bokar with a still and charismatic humanity: at one point he tells Jared McNeill as his questioning follower: "There is my truth, your truth, and the truth." And that gets to the heart of this wise show, which suggests that only through frank acknowledgement of difference will mankind survive.